A University of Iowa law professor who testified on behalf of a
conservative colleague alleging she wasn't hired because of her
conservative viewpoints says the school is retaliating by falsely
suggesting he was under investigation for sexual misconduct.

Mark Osiel [Aliber Family Chair in Law], a 20-year veteran of the university, testified Tuesday at
the federal trial of law school writing center employee Teresa Wagner, a
Republican who says she was repeatedly passed over for teaching jobs
because of her conservative views and activism. ...

While Osiel was on the witness stand, assistant attorney General George
Carroll said that Osiel had recently faced a misconduct investigation
after someone complained about hearing sexual grunting noises coming
from his office at the law school. Carroll argued that information was
relevant because it went to Osiel's credibility.

Osiel, 57, testified that the noises were from him taking part in exercises suggested by doctors to treat medical ailments. ... "Raising this issue, which is legally irrelevant to the testimony that I
was providing, shows how low the university will stoop in retaliating
against its employees of 20 years," said Osiel. ...

In an email Thursday, Osiel said he has been subjected to "unwarranted,
unsubstantiated accusations of harassment" by the university. He said he
was considering legal options, including a lawsuit for defamation and
intentional infliction of emotional distress. He said his medical records would prove that he had arthritis in his hip
and that physical therapists at University of Iowa Hospitals and
Clinics required him to perform certain exercises.

The University of Iowa erased a video that would have been key to
resolving a dispute between it and an employee who believes she was
illegally passed over for promotion because of her conservative
political views, it admitted in federal court here on Tuesday.

The
school hired Teresa Wagner as a part-time staffer at the Iowa College
of Law Writing Resource Center in 2006. She applied for a full-time
instructor’s position in the fall of that year, but claims the job went
to a lesser qualified candidate with liberal views.

Wagner, an
Iowa law school graduate, has previously worked for the National Right
to Life Committee and the Family Research Council. The committee opposes
abortion and the council opposes same-sex marriage.

The university denies politics played a part in the decision. It says
Wagner didn’t get the job largely because she said during a
presentation to faculty in January 2007 that she was unwilling to teach
legal analysis, which was included in the job description. Testifying before a jury here on Tuesday, Wagner denied making that statement.

A
video of her presentation would have resolved the issue, both sides
acknowledged. However, the university erased the video shortly after
Wagner was denied the job. ...

Also testifying Tuesday was Mark Osiel, a U of I law professor who
hired Wagner to help edit two research projects. Osiel called Wagner a
“superlative writer” and compared her to tenured professors.

Osiel
said he believes the university was disabled by liberal bias. “It
corrupts everything it touches,” he said of the school’s liberal
leanings, calling them “unconstitutional and morally indefensible.”

Comments

"However, the university erased the video shortly after Wagner was denied the job. ..."

Did they? 'shortly after Wagner was denied'? How was that fact verified? When other defendents make such claims they usually are not treated this way.

Posted by: thomass | Oct 19, 2012 10:28:03 AM

"However, the university erased the video shortly after Wagner was denied the job. ..."

Did they? 'shortly after Wagner was denied'? How was that fact verified? When other defendents make such claims they usually are not treated this way.

Posted by: thomass | Oct 19, 2012 10:30:35 AM

It's always the cover-up.

Posted by: AD-RtR/OS! | Oct 19, 2012 11:18:28 AM

"U of I Concedes at Trial Key Evidence Was Erased"

Ooops.

Posted by: Walter Sobchak | Oct 19, 2012 11:51:14 AM

...the university erased the video shortly after Wagner was denied the job. ... Osiel said he believes the university was disabled by liberal bias. “It corrupts everything it touches,” he said of the school’s liberal leanings....”

O'Sullivan's law: Any institution not explicitly conservative will become liberal with the passage of time. To which I add the corollary: any Western institution or organization not explicitly Christian will become liberal with the passage of time.

Iowa is a classic case of a law school in decline: narrow politics, physical isolation, declining prestige. But they are hardly alone in this. Anyone who has spent any time at a modern law school knows that politics are the starting and sometimes the ending point of the hiring process. The current law school crisis is in part about economics, but in significant part about this narrowness of perspective.

Posted by: michael livingston | Oct 20, 2012 3:23:06 AM

After a search committee concludes its work, the HR office collects the search related materials and keeps them only for a brief period and then destroys them. You make it sound like a grand conspiracy, but it's standard operating procedure.

She is an idiot if she thinks she can tell a search committee in an interview that she isn't going to do a part of the job that is listed in the job description, and expect to be hired. She is competing with other candidates who are willing to do the job.

And then expect to sue for the job later.

I am sure the search committee members have a distinct memory of this candidate refusing to do this part of the job, in the interview, if it happened. What a supremely stupid thing to do.